Checkers Basics for Beginners

May 12, 2016Uncategorizedboard, checker rules, checkers, ej gold, game, gorby, gorebagg, play, rules, tabletop game, tournamentgorebagg

checker championship at the WonderCon in 1978. — Checker championship was won by Shaggy at the WonderCon in 1978.

BASIC RULES OF TOURNAMENT CHECKERS:

Players flip a coin to see who goes first. Black always leads the moves and is considered a handicap position.
Place all 24 checkers on the black squares of the board, avoiding the two horizontal strips of black squares on “No-Man’s-Land” in the center of the board.
Pieces can make diagonal moves only, one square at a time except during jumps.
Each player moves one piece in turn.
Initial moves are only forward unless the piece has been crowned king by reaching the opponent’s back line.
If a piece can be taken, it must be taken. Forced moves cause forced captures.
Pieces are taken by jumping over them, from empty square to empty square. Pieces cannot land on top of other pieces.
You can only jump a piece if your piece is directly next to the opponent’s piece.
You must land on an empty square when jumping.
Multiple jumps may be made if conditions are right.
“King Me” is spoken aloud when reaching opponent’s back line, after which that piece can move either forward or backward on the board, but always diagonally.
The game is over when all the pieces of one player are gone. A play can end in a draw.

Those are the very basic rules of checkers. Watching a few games on youtube will give you the confidence you need to try playing a game with a friend. Continue reading →

So You Think Checkers is for Chumps???

May 12, 2016Uncategorizedchecker games, checker rules, checker strategies, checkers, chess, ej gold, gorby, gorebagg, strategies, strategygorebagg

Most people have the impression that checkers is a simple game, while chess is a horrifically complicated game. Actually, both games have extraordinary levels of deepness if you are inclined to pursue the craft at all. I’m posting a few examples of just how incredibly complex the game can be, and how extraordinarily sophisticated the analytical and theoretical levels really are, in the “simple” game of checkers — you know, the cracker or whiskey barrel variety of slow countrified game between two players too lazy to see if it’s rainin’, so they send the dog out and see if it comes back in wet. Continue reading →

Coin Checkers is as old as Humanity

May 10, 2016Uncategorizedcheckers, chess, coin, coinage, coinology, denominations, ej gold, gorby, gorebagg, time travelgorebagg

As far back as humans walked the Earth, there were games, many of which were played on a field that had been drawn in with a sharpened stick, or boundaried by rocks, and in the case of Kalah and similar “pocket” games, the landing places were scooped out of the dirt.

Pieces for those early “board” or “flat” games were typically made of wood, stones, shells and in fact anything that was traded as money, including beads. Yes, beads were used as game pieces, and I have a large collection of ancient board game pieces that show how broad the variation could be.

Historians today weren’t THERE, actually THERE, in the Old West, when people had nothing to do but play checkers after the daily chores were done. Who had checker pieces? But everyone carried SOME cash — you had to. Credit cards didn’t exist back then, and hardly did money.

Cowboys would bet penny against penny. Of course, it had to be “even money”, no such thing as nickels against pennies, unless one of the players was a pro gambler with some sort of edge that gave him the long-term win.

So who owns which penny?

The solution is so simple and so obvious that it was thought of thousands and thousands of years ago. Continue reading →

The Zen of Checkers

May 6, 2016Uncategorizedbackgammon, board game, checker, checkers, chess, ejgold, gorby, gorebagg, parcheesi, table game, tic tac toe, zengorebagg

Checkers was for many years known as “draughts”, and was played actively and daily by Roman soldiers, of course for money, and the practice has continued right up to the present day, as you’ll see around any cracker barrel or its equivalent, in any small town, anywhere on the planet and beyond.

Roman soldiers had little to do other than road-building, and eagerly sought exciting ways to pass the little leisure time they had to themselves, and every game they played involved money, even hopscotch, where the purse was placed on the chalked or stick-inscribed game layout.

Chess was played by the sons of rulers, to teach elements of strategy and defense, and Tic-Tac-Toe was a murderous game where you could lose your shirt quicker than a five-card stud player can lose theirs.

Many games are considered stress-busters, and backgammon is probably the best-known relaxation board game ever invented, although kalah and checkers might be just as popular. Continue reading →